I stand here today with incredible sadness for Helen, for Phil, for Helen's children and grandchildren, for her team and volunteers, for the people of Indi and for Australia—and so many people share this sadness. In my community, people have been stopping me in the street to tell me how this has affected them. I've received hundreds of messages of support to pass on to Helen, and there have been millions across the country. This senseless attack has triggered this outpouring of grief and love.

This tragic incident has affected so many Australians because of what Helen stands for—kindness and wisdom; respect and disagreeing civilly; ethics and wisdom; and community connection. All these are the type of politics we wish we had more of. It feels like such a blow not only to a woman and her family but to the nation that we imagine we are—where our leaders can move freely in our communities, safe in the knowledge that we Australians can disagree without violence.

Helen has had a big impact on me personally. When I was first elected and didn't really know how to do this job, Helen was very generous and invited Monique Ryan and I to go and spend the day in her office in Wangaratta, where she taught me everything I needed to know about how to do the job. That set the tone for me. I could see that it could be done. You could have civility and strength. You could hold government to account and make your point without being disrespectful. Helen does not need to belittle anyone and always argues the issue rather than attacking the person. My greatest wish is that I can be Helen when I grow up! She's set the tone for me.

Since I've arrived in this place, I've always taken my dilemmas to Helen. She always has time and she has wisdom. She can clearly see the right thing to do, and when she gently lays it out for you it seems so obvious. There are plenty of hard decisions to be made in this place—the perfect versus the good, politics versus policy, and complex issues to be navigated. Helen can always find the best way forward. Her clear, unassuming, ethical leadership led my colleague here, the member for Ryan, to give the other newbies a T-shirt for Christmas in that first year that said, 'What would Helen do?' It's a question I ask myself frequently.

Helen is such an important source of hope at a time when we desperately need more hope. Today my sadness is accompanied by the hope that Phil Haines expressed this morning—that this incident can be the thing that breaks the fever of anger in the parliament and across Australia. In this place we all want to find solutions when something terrible happens. We ask, 'How could this have happened and how could it have been prevented?' We don't know. It could be more mental health services. It could be dealing with the amplification of anger and negativity on social media. It could be better warning systems for law enforcement, more civility in parliament, better security for MPs or none of the above. The facts will unfold, and, in the meantime, everyone will take their own lessons from this. For me, the way I plan to honour Helen during her recovery is to continue her work making our democracy better on the integrity issues that are synonymous with her name and the fairness that underpins her view of the world, and, just as importantly, to honour and replicate how she does the work—with respect, civility, strength and kindness.

Before this week, Helen Haines was the only member of the Australian federal parliament who had committed to the civility pledge. I think that says it all. Right now, I'd like to follow Helen's example—so I say that, in my political life, I pledge to act with honesty, respect and compassion. These simple words embody what Helen means to me and to our political system.

Like so many across the country, I send Helen all my love to fortify her for the hard road ahead to the best possible new normal that she can have. I truly hope that she will be sitting here on the crossbench with us again before too long, and that, as her lovely husband, Phil, says, the parts of her that make her Helen—her heart and her mind—are not changed. Helen, please come back to us. We need you here more than ever.